Recent reviews by myers.benn

Story good. Gameplay loop good. Combat VERY good. Hard to put down. Highly recommend.

This game has polished, satisfying, multilayered turnbased combat. It's great!

If you're looking for a deep story RPG then this might not be the right item for you (the story, while not horrible, is pretty thin). However, if you're looking for a tactical turnbased combat game to help scratch that puzzle solving part of your brain then this game is a phenomenal choice.

Pathway is charming and has a lot of good ideas, but stumbles in its execution.

The vast majority of the game is spent in turn-based tactical combat. This is a major selling point for me, I adore turn based tactical combat. I'm particularly fond of seeing that format translated to unorthodox settings so an Indiana Jones turn based tactical game makes my heart sing.

But here's the rub, the combat isn't very fun. There are only a few enemy types and they don't really force you to change your strategy at all. In a few hours of playing every engagement has been the same strategy - pick an enemy, have all your guys shoot at him till he's dead, then move onto the next one.

Turn based tactics games need really varied abilities and equipment to be interesting. Disables, control effects, specialized damage, ETC. This game has a lot of items that let you do damage in different shapes, but most of the time you just move and shoot. That's a fine backbone, but it really starts to get old after a few hours.

Similarly, while the game advertises over 400 events, in just a few hours I'm seeing repeats all the time. There isn't really that sense of something new around the corner.

I'm gonna put a little more time into Pathway because I love its concept, but its a shallow game which makes it impossible to recommend for $15.

I love this game. Some people complain about the difficulty, but I think they're overstating it. It's true that not every quest ends in riches, and sometimes heroes die due to the capricious whims of the RNG, but overall, if you play smart and know when to hold 'em and when to 'fold em you'll succeed. I'm glad this is a game where sacrifices have weight and success is not guaranteed.

The gameplay itself has you managing a roster of adventurers. Every week you send a team of four of them out to complete a mission, while tending to the fragile psyches of those you leave behind. As your team travels into the dungeon they accumulate stress, which can eventually lead them to snap and cause problems for your whole party. This adds a really intersting dimension to Darkest Dungeon as its not just the combat that you need to worry about. It makes it viable to bring things like a jester in your party (who, while not quite as useful in combat as a crusader, does wonders for party morale.) Successful quests will leave you with gold (which you can use to upgrade characters skills, weapons, and armor, as well as to lower their stress) and heirlooms (which let you upgrade the buildings in town.) Slowly but surely your band of misfit heroes can be made into a formidable fighting force.

Right now the game is in early access, which means only ten of the 15 classes are implemented (although, as you can imagine, even with ten classes the number of different parties you can put together is pretty large.) Additionally, each class has 8 skills (although they can only have four equipped at a time.) This means that your two crusaders may not be exactly identical, or that you can bring a Bounty Hunter that fights from the front and another that prefers to stand in the back. It's an intersting system and lets you arrange your group of adventurers in all sorts of ways.

Don't listen to the haters. This game is only too hard if you can't handle dissapointment and don't think tactically. If your a fan of XCOM or roguelikes, this game comes highly recommended.